THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Photograph from Hawaiian Pineapple Co.
WHITE-CLAD GIRLS PARE PINEAPPLES FOR THE SLICING MACHINE
An ingenious machine peels the fruit to fit the cans, trims ends to even lengths, and cuts out the
core. As the cylinders move along on a belt, girls wearing sterilized rubber gloves trim any remaining
pieces of outside shell. Then the cylinders go to the slicer (Plate VIII and pages 446, 447, 456).
reason that I am alive to write this article
is that, as a boy, I never went into the crater
without throwing a few branches of ohelo
berries into the fire!
Almost as thrilling and far more magnifi
cent than the volcanoes on the island of
Hawaii, except, of course, when they are in
violent action, is the superb, long-dormant
crater of Haleakala, 10,032 feet above the
sea on the island of Maui (page 455). This
has a circumference of 21 miles, and is more
than 1,000 feet deep. Dead lava cones sev
eral hundred feet high on the floor of the
crater look, from the rim above, like anthills.
Standing on the summit of the mountain,
you feel as if you were in the center of some
weirdly beautiful universe. At your feet
is the immense chasm of the crater, torn and
tortured. On all sides rises the blue black
of the Pacific, up and up, making a horizon
level with your eyes, islanded with white
cloud masses far below. Across the channel
the three domes of Hawaii's mountains
shoulder their way through the clouds, the
two highest, snow-covered in winter, look
ing like white islands of the sky.
I had a startling experience one morning
on Haleakala. At breakfast time a profes
sor uncle of mine from Chicago was missing.
We called, but there was no answer. At last
we saw him, several hundred feet below
us, trying to climb down into the crater at
a spot where it was impossible to succeed.
"That is like these professors," my father
said.
"They think they know everything.
But since we do not want to have to report
him missing to your aunt, you will have to
climb down after him and show him how
to get back."
DIRE PERIL ON A LANDSLIDE
The man was in real danger because he
did not know the nature of the rocks over
which he was climbing or even the lay of
the land. I made quick time, but my voice
did not carry downward. I could not stop
him until I was almost upon him.
I found the foolish man sitting in the
444